I think my 2009 Macbook Pro is close to death, please help

H

Hephaestus

macrumors 6502
I've had my Macbook Pro since mid 2009 and have experienced no problems. Lately however I've noticed its been a bit sluggish and expose is choppier than normal. Today however I encountered a new problem. I get this error message:

http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/HT1392/106227_3.jpg

I read around and have found that this has something to do with a 'kernal panic' and apparently its caused by defective hardware. I'm really not that tech savvy when it comes to macs since this is my first one but I was wondering if anyone can help me out here. Also, its worth noting that this problem only occurs when I use wi-fi, or at least thats what I think.

Since it first occurred I switched off Wifi and repaired the disk permissions and it was working fine for a good hour or so, then as soon as I switch the wifi on I get the error again and my computer does not respond at all. To test this further I restarted the computer with the wi-fi on and the error came up again straight after boot up.

The third restart I quickly switched off the wifi when the desktop loaded and the computer has been fine for around 35 minutes. I'm 99% sure if I turn on Airport its gonna happen again. Just thought that was worth mentioning.

Please help!

ALSO: It might be worth noting that the network I'm connecting to is at my university, its just been installed and is a brand new wireless network in my dorm. I'll be going home tomorrow though so I'll see if it occurs when I connect to my own wifi. But surely the network cant be causing this can it?
 
Based on the symptoms you're describing, it sounds like you have a bad Airport card. They can definitely cause kernel panics. I would not expect sluggishness or exposé issues to be related to the Airport card. If you have AppleCare, bring it to your local Apple Authorized Service Center. There's the possibility your hard drive is failing, and this may be causing your slowdowns. If there's any important data on your drive, I'd highly recommend backing it up.
 
thanks for the response detrius, the strange thing is expose only lags with safari, when I'm using it for applications its fine, but when I have an internet page open, the page will lag. Not sure if this supports your theory of a bad wifi card or not?
 
Ok i just got back home and im using wifi and i have no problems what so ever, it must have been the network in the university causing some problem with the laptop.
 
I was having "kernal panic" issues too. I reinstalled my OS. So far, so good. Praying that it will be alright from now on.
From what I've read, it can be either software or hardware issues.
 
My 2010 MacBook Pro experiences Kernel Panics too every now and then but for different reasons than yours. I took it to the Apple store and they ran some tests on it but couldn't find anything. Their advice to me was to just do a clean install. I've upgraded the ram and hard drive myself but I remember the kernel panics happening before I ever opened up my laptop. I haven't had an issue since I've taken it to the Apple store earlier this week, so hopefully everything is fine now.
 
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